Posted
by
Zonk
on Friday March 03, 2006 @04:55PM
from the flagged-for-pvp dept.

Declan McCullagh writes "We found out in mid-2004 that the RIAA was lobbying the FCC for an audio version of the broadcast flag. But because a federal appeals court slapped down the FCC's video version last year, the RIAA needs to seek formal authorization from Congress. That process finally began today when the audio flag bill was introduced. It would hand the FCC the power to set standards and regulate digital and satellite radio receivers, and RIAA Chairman Mitch Bainwol says it strikes "a balance that's good for the music, good for the fans, and good for business." The text of the bill is available online."

This couldn't be more wrong. What artist wants to have the spread of their music choked off? The music they put their blood, sweat, and tears into? It's not like they're gonna make any more money by having their music "digitally protected" on the radio, either, so where's the advantage? Don't most music "pirates" get their music from ripping CDs, anyways? I can't say I've ever known anyone that pirated music by recording it off the radio and then distributing it.

Only if by "fans" they mean... uhh... nope, nevermind. Only business applies. When the Asshat Association of America can convince me that not being able to listen to my overpriced music is good for me, I'll reconsider. Till then, I'll take money that I would have bought CDs with and donate it to everone's favorite Swedish website.

You reading this RIAA? Fuck you. We are not encouraged to pay for music by these actions. In trying to stop piracy, you are in fact encouraging it. Get your act together, because if you want to stay in business, you need to think "entertainment business" not "CD business". Stop gouging the bejesus out of us and we won't have to download it questionably. Piracy gets easier every day, but listening to legally purchased music gets harder by the day. Maybe if you can make it so it's not a pain in the ass to listen to our purchased music when it's so much easier (and cheaper) to download it and put it on any player we want, we'll start paying again. Why is iTunes hugely successful when CD sales are plummeting? It's easy and it's at a much more reasonable price. So cut your fucking losses and deal with it, not screw over your actual customers.

Strip out the curses and send this to the RIAA and the congresscritters involved with the bill. Posting it here doesn't do any good. Sending it to them probably won't, either, but at least you'll have voiced your opinion at the right people.

Only reason I put them in there in the first place was for effect. Seeing that being a 12-year-old living in the projects or a dead grandmother hasn't cut it as a defense against their attacks, I figured they need something to help get the point. They've gotta have someone under their long arms that reads/. and more specifically the stories going to further prove how rediculous their business practices are.

If the RIAA wants something and says it's good for music fans, you can be sure it will be something to further enforce their monopoly and abuses as well as extract more money out of your pockets while further limiting our ability to listen to music when and how we want to.

Simple rule of thumb, if the RIAA is for something, I am automatically against it.

As to how this is good for the consumer. I can clearly see how it is good for business. Good for music is iffy at best. All I can see (as I'm sure others will not) is consumers will have to buy new equipment and broadcasters will have to expend money to comply.

Its about time to put Fair Use into law I think, now if only I could find legislators I trust to do that well...

The real insanity is that the government, a representative of the public interest, is attempting to mandate a private lock on a public utlility - the air waves. You want tio strike a fair balance? Make RIAA members pay for each use, i.e. play, on our public utilities. Since they're the bastards trying to shift us towards a licensing model for everything, let them lead the way by their virtuous example. Or we can just all wake up from this idiotic nightmare and roll back to the original, proper, and only log

The broadcast flag is bad for consumers and business. It's bad for consumers because they are going to have to replace otherwise working radio equipment, right?

And it's bad for businesses, because when DRM goes wrong [and it almost always is wrong] then the maker gets slapped for it. Sony BMG is learning that the hard way. Music playing businesses, such as waiting offices, or ones that use music on their hold system might find themselves paying more too. The RIAA is not going to stop at screwing consumers, it will make sure businesses give them more money too.

DRM doesn't always go bad. Relatively speaking, Apple's FairPlay implementation hasn't had any glaring problems. Yes, Apple did push out a change to the rights with an iTunes update, but it hasn't lead to mass hysteria because of huge problems.

That said, the "balance" the RIAA seeks is a see saw with them on the end that's touching the ground.

I predict you'll be hearing from more than one person who has lost music transfering from one computer to another - I know I've talked to a few of them. Nothing like trying to move say 60 songs from one machine to another and afterwards only having 50 of them.....

I for one don't use iTunes and prefer to rip the USED CDs I buy instead. Screw 'em!

Listen carefully MPAA/RIAA. Re the aneurism, I hope its fatal. Damnit, you got your ransom for that disk when it was first sold, and it was sold with the understanding that the buyer had unlimited play rights. And if he/she/it gets tired of it and sells it to a used bookstore for 50 cents rather than add to the trash in the landfill, then those unlimited play rights go with the cd to the next buyer. The secret is that when the seller does sell it, he is legally expected to expunge any ripped copies from

FairPlay goes bad all the time. Why just two days ago an MP3 Player owner contacted me and asked why they couldn't get ACC files they created with ITunes to work on their player. Turns out of course that ACC isn't supported on that player, and if the files have FairPlay built into them, then good luck converting to any other format [besides the lossy problem]. They have to start again from scratch ripping using CDex which I also showed has CDdb that means they don't have to type in artists and track name

FairPlay goes bad all the time. Why just two days ago an MP3 Player owner contacted me and asked why they couldn't get ACC files they created with ITunes to work on their player. Turns out of course that ACC isn't supported on that player, and if the files have FairPlay built into them, then good luck converting to any other format [besides the lossy problem]. They have to start again from scratch ripping using CDex which I also showed has CDdb that means they don't have to type in artists and track names.

(2) shall not make obsolete any devices already manufactured and distributed in the marketplace before the implementation of such regulations

So after the implementation of such regulations they can be made obsolete?

You gotta love ambiguity in the language used to craft law.

Seriously, you are legally mandated to love the ambiguity. You don't want to know the penalties for not loving the ambiguity.

Seriously, the penalties are a matter of national security and you do not want to know them. The penalties for knowing them are worse than the aforementioned penalties themselves, so you really don't want to know any of them.

Some suits have ended, but there's still at least two in Canada that I've not heard of a resolution. Sony still stands to lose in the courts or bargaining tables all around the world from their rootkit DRM crime in Texas and California [last I heard].

Depends on the business. If your business is selling equipment that kowtows to the broadcast flag or your business depends on making the legal RIGHTS of your customers' a logistical nightmare then it's great for business.

It's bad for consumers because they are going to have to replace otherwise working radio equipment, right?

That didn't stop Congress from *forcing* digital TV adoption and even going so far as to say that they will pay for "low income hou

"a balance that's good for the music, good for the fans, and good for business."

This is by far the most infuriating thing I've read all day. They just think it's their right to control everything related to music. The RIAA thinks that they should be able to control what is listened to by fans of music, period. As a musician, I swear I will not ever sign a contract with anyone related to these bean-countering destroyers of culture, and if that means I can never make money, so be it. I just hope the Internet makes these people obsolete and impoverished sooner than later.

They just think it's their right to control everything related to music.

I'm not normally one to complain, but this morning I was walking down the street and humming some top 40 hits to myself, when out of nowhere some old guy in a suit leaped out and hit me in the face with a shovel.

I hope you'll not only share a link to where your music can be found but you'll keep your sensibilities about music and the RIAA when talking to radio stations. I work at a community radio station (WEFT 90.1 FM [weft.org]) which plays a great deal of music licensed by the RIAA. Hardly what I'd call alternative, but mine isn't the only opinion in the place.

Recently we had a light discussion about what it would take to do webstreaming. For those of you who don't know, the RIAA licenses tracks of their clients and the terms of the license [cpb.org] are rather vague and somewhat hard to shift to if one is used to being able to broadcast almost anything.

WORT recently announced a new and improved webcast [wort-fm.org]. Their announcement is interesting because it starts by lying claiming that they'll webcast "all of its programming!" (see page 13 of the PDF newsletter). When you read further you see that WORT plans to comply with RIAA licensing restrictions by not webcasting some of its programming (presumably either shows or tracks that can't be webcast at that moment). Like I said, it's not easy to webcast if you insist on doing what you can to avoid losing a copyright infringement lawsuit while playing RIAA-licensed stuff. If you've grown used to the over-the-air rules, which don't restrict you in the way RIAA's webcasting restrictions do, you've got a tough row to hoe. The RIAA's online restrictions say things such as you can't play the same featured artist more than 4 times in a 3-hour period, nor can you play more than 3 tracks from the same CD/tape/record in a 3-hour period.

I was curious how much adjustment WEFT would have to make to take on webcasting RIAA tracks. So I looked at some of WEFT's playlists and compared them to RIAA webcasting restrictions. Suffice to say, WEFTies don't yet realize how many shows they'll have to change. I forsee much unpleasant discussion about this topic as we wrestle with exchanging increased listenership for playlist freedom and the hassles that go along with assembling an RIAA-compliant playlist.

/.ers will read this and think that this is a natural application for a database. And if you're thinking this way, you're right but there's more to it than that. WEFT has roughly 40,000 CDs in its library and lots of CDs coming in every week. Finding the financing for the hardware to host the database on alone is a daunting task, finding the volunteer commitment needed to make the database workable for everyone (not just the techies) is another tall order. I'm up for it, but I know a lot more about writing software than I do about writing grant requests, and I estimate we'll need many thousands of dollars to do this in a way that won't fall over when the power dies or a couple of hard drives go bad.

Still other/.ers might think differently and conclude that we should just stop playing RIAA tracks, or WEFT should severly cut down on the RIAA tracks we play. Again, I'm up for that—I host a public-affairs program called "Digital Citizen" every other Wednesday from 8-10PM where I play only stuff my listeners can share. I focus on copyright law, patent law, and Free Software (as in the Free Software movement) issues. The only RIAA licensed tracks I play are fair-use snippets, so these webcasting rules don't apply to me. Other public-affairs shows (like News from Neptune [newsfromneptune.com]) don't play RIAA tracks at all. The majority of shows on WEFT are music shows and it remains to be seen how receptive they will be to giving up 90% or more of what's in WEFT's library.

So now you're slightly more familiar with the restrictions from the radio end of things, even on community radio which is ostensibly more accessible to the public and less likely to play the mainstream RIAA-licensed stuff you can hear everywhere else.

Well, at least they're not gonna make old receivers illegal or inoperable. I guess that must be the part that "strikes a balance" which is "fair to consumers". If you think there'll ever be anything good on satelite radio, buy your hardware now...:)

(2) shall not make obsolete any devices already manufactured and distributed in the marketplace before the implementation of such regulations; and(3) shall not be inconsistent with the customary use of broadcast content by consumers to theextent such use is consistent with the purposes of this act and other applicable law.

I've actually already noticed this with media center edition. The computer I got shipped with a tuner card, media center edition and the ability to listen to FM. Obviously the FM is buffered, but for some odd reason you can't record off of it, MCE doesn't provide that capability. Now I'm sure there's other software that could do this that I could get, but I'm just saying: sign of things to come.

Why not, they haven't policed the profanity on the ham bands in 30 years now, nor the profanity on 11 meters in nearly 40. What makes you think they'll do more than token enforcement in the future? The only enforcement is by the hams themselves, and on 80 meters in particular, its whoever has the biggest linear, with one rig I heard 4 or 5 years ago that had to have been at least 50kw. And it was being run by an idiot with no knowledge of proper modulation, just the steadier he could keep the power meter

In other news, Donald Rumsfeld declares that Abu Graïb is good for iraki prisoneers and Joseph Stalin declares that gulags are good for political opponents. More exciting news on the redefinition and ironic use of "good" at 11.

and Joseph Stalin declares that gulags are good for political opponents.

Actually, Stalin would have his opponents declare that the Gulag was good for them. I think the RIAA could take a lesson from this and a) have consumers publicly state that the broadcast flag is good for them and has led to a "drastically improved listening experience", b) have some people voluntarily turn in their non-compliant hardware (or turn themselves in as filesharers), or c) surrender to the French [slashdot.org].

You have an attention span of more than 5 sec. You clearly are not the target
fanbase he is talking about . If on the other hand, were you to have a attention span of less than 5 sec, then you would have realized that this indeed is beneficial to the fans, because.. Oh look there's a shinny penny.

It would hand the FCC the power to set standards and regulate digital and satellite radio receivers, and RIAA Chairman Mitch Bainwol says it strikes "a balance that's good for the music, good for the fans, and good for business.

No, lad. You want to transmit an audio signal, you accept that I'm gonna do whatever I damn well like when I recieve it. Is it just me, or does anyone else think the RIAA is becoming a bit "precious"?

Big deal. The bill has a total of one sponsor and hasn't even been referred to committee yet. Folks, any legislator can introduce a bill on anything. Most of them die in committee and never see the light of day. Get back to me if it makes it out of committee.

Rep. Mike Ferguson, a New Jersey Republican, said his bill--which would enforce a so-called "broadcast flag" for digital and satellite audio receivers--was necessary to protect the music industry from the threat of piracy.

Necessary? I don't think it's necessary. It'll help, but at what cost to the consumer? And not the Slashdot freeloaders, the honest people who don't pirate anything. Actually, that would include most of Slashdot, none of us ever pirate, we just try before we buy. That's right, isn't it? I'm new here, I don't know the official way we dress up our excuses yet.

"With exciting new digital audio devices on the market today and more on the horizon, Congress needs to streamline the deployment of digital services and protect the intellectual property rights of creators," said Ferguson, who is a member of the House of Representatives' Internet subcommittee. Rep. Mary Bono, a California Republican, is one of the four other co-sponsors.

Well, she's absolutely right here on one count. Congress does need to protect the intellectual property rights of creators, because they are currently under massive assault in a legal system that is a decade behind the technology that it regulates. However, as a Republican, Ms. Bono ought to understand that regulating business is rarely the answer to these problems. Or, in this case, regulating consumers. Even worse. What happened to small government staying out of our lives, Ms. Bono? I'm among those that put the Republicans in power during the Clinton administration and you and your ilk have gradually betrayed our trust. Further, it is also the job of Congress to ensure that our rights as consumers are protected, and for all his enthusiasm, I don't think Darth Nader is up to the job. For one, he's not in the legislature. You are, Ms. Bono.

That's because a federal appeals court last year unceremoniously rejected a similar set of regulations from the FCC, saying the agency did not have authority to mandate a broadcast flag for digital video.

Further proof that over a long enough trajectory the legal system almost always gets it right.

At a breakfast roundtable with reporters on Thursday, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said some sort of legislation is necessary to prevent Americans from saving high-quality music from digital broadcasts, assembling a "personal music library" of their own, and redistributing "recorded songs over the Internet or on removable media."

We already have legislation that forbids this. They don't want legislation, they want mandated hardware controls to enforce it. I have no objections to streamlining the law to get it caught up with technology and limit the impact of piracy on the RIAA's bottom line. I do have a serious problem with legal mandates that enforce technological limits on legal behavior.

Devices like the Sirius S50, the RIAA worries, can record satellite radio broadcasts but aren't required to include digital rights management limitations.

Nor should they be. Sirius bought broadcast rights from ASCAP or whoever broadcast rights group does digital radio, just like everybody else does. The industry has its money from Sirius et al. The only barrier to mass copyright infringement is unreadable devices. As Roger Ebert pointed out long ago, anybody who is a hair above marginally technically competant can create high-quality reproductions of almost any playable media using cheap technology, and store the output in any formot. Onto p2p it goes. The broadcast flag is a big expensive pain in the ass that will not address the problem to their satisfaction, and they'll be back demanding MORE legislation in 5 years when their E/P ratio is too high. The broadcast flag is the first step on a long road of incremenetal freedom reduction that winds gradually out of sight into uncharted territory. Actually, it's not so uncharted. We know wha

A few points:First off the RIAA is not the same as the music publishing industry. ASCAP/BMI/SESAC licenses songs from the publisher for broadcast and live performances, NOT recordings. Mechanical reproductions are licensed from the publisher through the Harry Fox Agency to be cut or recorded.

Secondly, the Congress does not need to actively protect IP by enacting new laws. The ones we have work just fine. It is the court's job to protect the IP of the involved parties. In the US copyright law is a civil matt

US congress needs to introduce an other bill that limits windows as the only OS that can run on the computers (or may be anything that has microprocessor or may be anything MS thinks their OS can run on). This bill should be introduced in the best interest of the people. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OUR CONGRESS representative working for the people.

The music industry of the last century was mature in that it worked for everyone involved. With the coming of the wired/wireless world came irritants the upset the status quo. The little piggys that ran the music/movie industries are trying to figure out how to turn these new irritants into pearls. It's a if pigs were oysters sorta thing.

Lawmakers are being asked to legislate the new industry to protect the status quo of the old industry players, the rights of consumers, the cultural heritage of their respe

Remember, the alternative was not between a bill being introduced, or not introduced- it was between whether or not there would be a democratic debate on this at all. There is no use getting mad at the recording industry for wanting this. It is in its nature. You might as well get angry at the sun for setting at the end of each day. Congress is another matter entirely. But this is the way it is supposed to work. The RIAA represents American citizens that have a right to have their voices heard, the same as

If it gives the FCC the power to regulate Satallite radio, would this also allow them to impose decency standards to satallite radio? Can we say goodbye Howard Stern.. and to half the buisness model of Sirius...

I have no cable or satellite program anymore. COX was such a money sink and all I got was commercials, fake news, religious bullshit, screwed history and science channels, sometimes an old movie, no sex, and PBS (public TV in the US). Well, I still can get PBS for free via antenna, but I do not need it. I use the saved money to buy used DVDs. This is a lot cheaper. If one day the DRM nightmare kicks in, then I say good bye to movie discs, too. Radio is only interesting for me when I drive long distances, le

Exactly. I have a Sirius subscription and the thing I like about it is the larger selection of music. I have many songs in a digital format that I have acquired over the years, but I always like to find new stuff. If I like something enough to add it to the collection I like to get a whole album or at least a few more songs than the current hit. Satellite radio bitrate isn't all that great and I have no playlist so I would just have to record hours to find the song I want. Seems silly to copy songs fro

The RIAA can't introduce bills, only our elected representatives can do that. The RIAA can give the congressmen money, and write legislation for them. But, it's the representative that must own up to this.

So, don't waste time moaning about the RIAA. This is their business, you should expect nothing less from them. They want to extract the most money possible from as many people as possible.

Those are the only two listed in the article, the other co-sponsors are not listed. But, in previous actions, it has been endorsed by:

Eliot Engel (D-NY)Greg Walden (R-OR)Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)

The TV version of the broadcast flag was quickly withdrawn after it was clear that American citizens were overwhelmingly against it. It's a bit surprising that these rep's are sticking their necks out on this issue.

We need to let them know this is a bad idea, and let their constituents know that their representatives are pushing this stuff despite their disapproval.

Looking at the FEC(Federal Election Commission) records the sponsor of this Bill, Mike Ferguson you will find the following additions to his Campaign Fund.TIME WARNER POLITICAL ACTION CMTE 2/26/2004 $1000TIME WARNER POLITICAL ACTION CMTE 6/24/2004 $2000TIME WARNER POLITICAL ACTION CMTE 9/23/2004 $1000Though a little peculiar Mike Ferguson gave $1000 back to Time Warner on 03/16/2005.

You can't beat the man, give up. They have you by the balls. Which balls, the balls = 99% of consumers who don't give a shit that big businesses can do whatever they please and think its "un-American" to question capitalism, even when the markets are obviously and publicly manipulated. I mean whats the alternative, letting people steal Orin Hatch's wildly popular music [hatchmusic.com]? Unthinkable.

When the government is large and far reaching, it then has the power to legislate and regulate in favor of big business to help squash competition from small business.

Government here in the US should be minimal (at best) as set forth by the Constitution and the DoI. If the government doesn't have the power to regulate things in which it should not, then it doesn't have the ability to be biased to the largest campaign supporters.

Why is the Federal Government even involved in enforcing copyright? These are private-sector outfits that have every right to protect their rights in court at their own expense... I simply object to the Feds (and my tax dollars!) being conscripted to serve as the enforcement arm of the RIAA. The FCC has overstepped its bounds pretty regularly these past few years: I think it's time to take a hard look at just how much power the FCC needs to do its job, and to more firmly define what that job actually is. F

You should try listening to XM before you bash it. The sound quality is definitely noticably better than on Sirius. It's rare that I have any complaints about the sound quality on XM, but Sirius really makes me cringe sometimes. The talk stations aren't great on either, but Sirius's talk stations are especially bad.

"but MY satellite radio [sirius.com] is assuredly almost CD-quality sound."

It most assuredly is not. It's not even close. The only station with half-way decent quality is the Classical Music station (Symphony). The sound on Sirius ranges from okay to just awful. XM strikes me as a bit better, but certainly nothing to boast about.

I owned a SIRIUS Satellite Radio for about 2 weeks before returning it. The sound quality was not even close to FM quality. If you remember Motorola's C-QUAM AM Stereo, it sounds a lot like that. A 96k MP3 is also pretty close. It's not horrible for talk shows and such, but I found that I just couldn't enjoy the music on it. The programming was awesome, but the quality left a lot to be desired.

That really depends on what station you're listening to. FM has its fair share of inherent quality loss. The quality is also very dependant on what station you're listening to. Some of the New York stations are horrible - Z100 in particular.In general, I'd put XM's quality either light above or equal to that of FM, with Sirius around the quality of a low end FM station. XM tends to sacrifice the low frequencies in favor of the highs. I guess if you're into bass driven music you might not like it, but for th

and the bill says that all devices that come out after the bill is made into law cannot ignore the flag, and that the FCC will have the power to regulate, meaning anybody making software to ignore the flag will be breaking the law.

What about -using- software/hardware that doesn't support the flag? For example, what if the software was written in, to pick a country at random... Norway? I guess using it here would violate the DMCA and result in imprisonment or something.

such licenses shall include prohibitions against unauthorized copying and redistribution of transmitted content...

That phrase unauthorized copying pops-up several times in the text of the bill. There is however no definition of what constitutes "unauthorized copy". Absent that definition, it would seem difficult to evaluate what we're getting here.

>Why is a broadcast flag bad? You don't OWN the material that's being beamed into your house, any more than you own a movie that you happened to go see in a theater.

Airwaves are a public resource. The public resource has been licensed by the FCC in different manners and monies gained in different amounts for different activities. Spectrum that is for a single private individual's use only is VERY expensive and is generally not receivable without special equipment. Spectrum that is for everyone and anyo

But now people who have licensed spectrum for the use of anyone at all want to use their cheaply purchased public resource for their own special private commercial usage.

That's not right. Radio and TV stations have licensed the spectrum for their exclusive use over a certain area. That's why pirate broadcasters who piggyback on commercially-licensed frequencies are breaking the law.

Who's a dolt? Fair use doctrine does indeed allow time shifting (recording for later playback). It was validated by SCOTUS in the early 80's Betamax case, and hasn't been overturned by any subsequent decisions. If you don't believe me, here's the EFF's take on it [eff.org].

So I guess that makes you a dolt too, spouting off about that which you know so little. It's people like you who are willing to just take whatever bread crumbs they toss us that are allowing them to get

The problem with the brodcast flag and other DRM (Digital Restictions Management) is that they WILL eventually be used to manipulate the media to ensure that the message is only what the powers that be want it to be whether it is in the music or the image.

BTW, didja ever hear of the Betamax case, in which the US Supreme Court (before this country was fully OWNED by business, and we occasionally had the rights of the American people respected) decided that the constitutional fair use rights which we all have, and which the government has not and cannot constitutionally take away from us, allowed the type of recording off the TV that you are now questioning?

So much self-righteousness, but did YOU actually read the case? I challenge you to find the language t

But the courts have consistently found that it would be unconstitutional to permit ourselves to do away with a huge amount of personal use rights ("fair use"). And amongst those fair use rights are the right to timeshift.

Again, if you are so well versed in the law, I ask you simply for a legal citation that supports that proposition. I maintain that, in fact, what the Court held in the Betamax case was that there was no basis for a civil action under the terms of the statutes then in effect. It was NOT h

I wish this would be the case, but time and again, the electronics industry, despite being at least one order of magnitude larger than the entertainment industry, caves in to every demand of the ??AA. There are small electronics companies which want to make consumer goods that include functionality that users want, but the big guys generally do what they can to create licensed technologies that force all manufacturers to abide by even stricter rules than the law specifies.